


How Am I Gonna Be a Hufflepuff About This

by Tedronai



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
Genre: Bastard Child of EotW and Philosopher's Stone, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 20:23:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4680119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tedronai/pseuds/Tedronai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mat Cauthon was no (bloody) Gryffindor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Am I Gonna Be a Hufflepuff About This

**Author's Note:**

> For [actual-rand-althor](http://actual-rand-althor.tumblr.com) on Tumblr.

Matrim Cauthon was no (bloody) hero. By the age of eleven, he had read all the _Magnus the Magnificent_ comics and come to the conclusion that being a hero was hard (bloody) work that never paid off well enough. The hero may get the girl at the end of the story, but Mat was not interested in that. He’d have rather taken the reward (which the hero always declined, because heroes were stupid like that) and bought enough chocolate frogs to share with all the kids in the neighbourhood.

The comics always made it obnoxiously clear that the Magnificent Magnus had been a Gryffindor when he’d gone to school. Mat knew before he ever set foot to Hogwarts that he was not going to be a (bloody) Gryffindor.

Except… the Sorting Hat decided otherwise.

Protesting that this had to be some mistake was absolutely no use. The grey-haired Professor McGonagall merely gave him an exasperated look when he asked about it at the end of the feast. “The Sorting Hat makes no mistakes, mister Cauthon,” she said sternly. “It sees our qualities better than we do, sometimes. I am certain there’s a hero in you, Cauthon, it is up to you to find it.”

Mat couldn’t get a word in edgeways to assure the professor that he wasn’t afraid of not living up to the (bloody) Sorting Hat’s expectations, oh no, on the contrary. He didn’t _want_ to suddenly manifest any ridiculously heroic tendencies. Nope. He was not going to, he _wasn’t_ , and the Sorting Hat could go stuff itself.

 

* * *

 

Over the next weeks he came to the conclusion, after extensive research, that what he _really_ was, was a Hufflepuff.

Ravenclaw sounded like entirely too much effort, that he decided after one afternoon of observing a group of boys slightly older than himself spending most of their free time in the library. Mat had nothing against reading, he just somehow never stayed still for long enough to finish a book that didn’t have pictures in it. And spending an entire afternoon in the library, before any deadlines were even closing in? No. That was not the sort of crowd he wanted to associate with.

He was drawn to Slytherin at first, he liked the green colour and the snake motif was all kinds of neat and the Slytherin kids always seemed to have lots of fun, laughing the loudest and pulling pranks on the professors. (Except McGonagall. _Nobody_ pranked Professor McGonagall.) Overall they seemed exactly the kind of un-heroic bunch that associating with them would surely make anyone see that Mat was no (bloody) Gryffindor. However, he gave up on this plan after the first Potions class; the teacher, professor Taim, was the head of Slytherin and quite possibly the most unpleasant person Mat had ever had the displeasure of dealing with.

And that left him with Hufflepuff.

He wasn’t sure he was too convinced, first, but looking back to his other options (Ravenclaw nope, Slytherin nooope, Gryffindor hell no) settled it for him. Yellow wasn’t actually such a bad colour, and badgers were really cool animals now that he thought of it. Yes. He’d be a Hufflepuff.

 

* * *

 

So it was that on the Monday of his third week at Hogwarts, he marched into the Great Hall for breakfast and headed to the Hufflepuff table instead of the Gryffindor one. Confidence was the key, he told himself; if he just sat down and started stuffing his face like he totally belonged there, nobody would think twice about it. Well, he was half right. He could see that people certainly thought _something_ about it (twice, thrice, probably as many as five times) but nobody said anything or tried to make him leave so he was good.

At lunch, a stocky, curly-haired boy with strange golden eyes came to sit next to him, introducing himself as Perrin.

“Mat,” Mat replied, sticking out his hand (after wiping it hastily on the napkin). “Pleased to meet you.” (He shovelled more of the pudding into his mouth.) “So… How does one become a Hufflepuff?”

Perrin shrugged. “I guess you’re born one?” Then he seemed to reconsider. “Except that Professor Mathwin was just saying how nobody should be judged by what kind of family or body they’re born in.”

Mat didn’t know who this Professor Mathwin was, but they sounded like an exceptionally bright individual, and he nodded along enthusiastically (mouth full of pudding).

Perrin smiled, seemingly pleased that the other boy agreed. “I guess the important part is to want to be a Hufflepuff,” he said eventually. Then he grinned. “I’m sure you’ll be a great Hufflepuff!”

Mat agreed. He’d be the greatest Hufflepuff in the history of Hogwarts.

 

* * *

 

He started accompanying Perrin to classes even when the Hufflepuffs weren’t grouped with the Gryffindors. Some professors tried to complain (Professor Taim being the loudest) but somehow every time the Headmaster seemed like he might promise to take action, something happened, a distraction, and the topic was buried again. After the first three times this happened, Professor Mathwin (the Head of the Hufflepuff house, as Mat had learned by now) started giving him thoughtful looks and muttering something that sounded curiously like _tavern_ when he passed by, scribbling into her little notebook. Mat had no idea what that meant (he was too young to go drinking in a tavern, or anywhere else) but as long as she seemed content to let him remain a honorary Hufflepuff he was not about to complain.

Over the autumn he gradually migrated to the Hufflepuff dormitory, earning only a few baffled looks for this; the older Hufflepuffs accepted him readily enough once they saw how well he got on with the House ghost, the Fat Whitecloak. (He wasn’t like the Whitecloaks they were made to read about in the History of Magic class, really. He was a nice Whitecloak. Or… _had been_ a nice Whitecloak. He claimed that that’s how all Whitecloaks should have been but something had gone wrong. The history books said nothing about that, but Mat supposed the Fat Whitecloak should know better; after all, he had been there, unlike the wizards who wrote the books.)

He almost voluntarily accompanied Perrin to the library to do homework. When he tried to complain about this, Perrin simply shrugged and said that Ravenclaws weren’t the only ones who did their homework every now and then, and that only Gryffindors could be so foolish as to think they could skip homework altogether. That worked — which, in retrospect, probably had been Perrin’s intention, but Mat couldn’t find it in himself to be mad at the other boy. After all, they only spent a couple of hours a week in the library, unlike Ravenclaws, who seemed to be there for several hours _each day_.

By the time Christmas came around, Mat was beginning to feel confident that if he just appealed to the Headmaster, he would be allowed to officially change his house to Hufflepuff. With Perrin’s aid (and alright, the Head Girl Nynaeve helped some, too) he wrote a letter and was going to present it with a carefully prepared speech and all, but just as he was going to approach the Headmaster, somebody ran in screaming about a Trolloc in the dungeons. Quite understandably this ruined the moment and in the ensuing confusion Mat lost his letter.

He realised the letter was missing halfway to the Hufflepuff common room in the basement, and (bloody hell) he’d put too much work into the (damn) thing to lose it now! He turned on his heels and was gone before Nynaeve could do anything, Perrin trailing after him. They traced their steps back towards the Great Hall, scanning the floor for anything that looked like a folded piece of paper. (They never found it. Instead, they found a collection of buttons, one silver earring, a dice pouch with a set of bright-coloured plastic dice, a feather quill and a very confused toad. Later, Professor Mathwin commended them for collecting these items and set the house elves to returning them to their rightful owners. The owner of the dice was never found, and Mat was allowed to keep them as a reward for his honesty.)

They were almost back at the Great Hall, when Perrin suddenly grasped Mat’s arm and stopped. “Listen.”

Mat frowned. He was just about to ask what exactly he was supposed to be listening to when he heard it too. “Is that… Egwene?”

Perrin nodded. “Come.” And with that, the other boy was dashing towards where the shouts were coming from, like a (bloody) Gryffindor and Mat had no choice but to follow. (Besides, the Trolloc might have his letter.)

They followed the shouts to an abandoned girls’ bathroom, where they found two Gryffindor first years stuck in a stall while the Trolloc sat outside, blocking the door. “Get off your butt and move your disgusting hulk, you fiend!” one was shouting; not Egwene, this one was a boy called Rand, something of a Gryffindor celebrity in their year. Egwene was being somewhat louder and her language was more colourful, which Mat could respect, even if he wasn’t sure “your mother is a Trolloc” was the most efficient way to insult an actual Trolloc.

The Trolloc, however, showed absolutely no inclination to obey either of them. It remained seated, looking smug (as far as Mat could read Trolloc facial expressions)… until it noticed the newcomers. It made a sound that might have been irritated or delighted, Mat couldn’t tell, and he didn’t have a lot of time to try to figure it out because then the Trolloc launched at him and Perrin, waving something that looked like a piece of sewage pipe.

“Bloody hell,” he groaned.

“Duck!” Perrin yelled, dragging Mat down with him, as the Trolloc swung the pipe at them.

Drawing his wand without thinking, Mat reached around Perrin to shoot colourful sparks at the Trolloc, at the same time as the two Gryffindors burst out of the bathroom stall and added their spells to the mix. The resulting cacophony of magic was blue and red and purple and left glitter floating in the air (Perrin complained afterwards that he still found glitter in his hair a week later), and once they were all able to see again, the Trolloc lay on the floor, unconscious or dead.

Rand and Egwene looked at Mat and Perrin. The sound of running footsteps echoed from somewhere further along the corridor.

“Nice shot, Mat,” Rand said, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Thanks,” Mat replied. “Uh, you too.”

“No, that was Egwene.”

“Oh. Right.”

It was at this point that the running footsteps reached the scene of the battle, and Professors McGonagall and Taim stared at the four children (and the dead or unconscious Trolloc) with varying degrees of anger and disbelief.

“Have you _any idea_ how many rules you four have just broken?” Taim demanded. “How dangerous it is to go against a Trolloc when you barely know how to hold a wand? You ought to spend the rest of your lives in detention, but since that will not be physically possible, I’ll settle for—”

“That will be quite enough, Mazrim, thank you,” McGonagall cut in. “Be a dear and fetch Logain and see if the two of you can’t get rid of that thing.” She gestured at the (dead or unconscious) Trolloc.

Taim looked like he was about to protest, but McGonagall raised an eyebrow and the other professor acquiesced. He strode off muttering something about not needing Logain bloody Ablar to dispose of a single Trolloc that had yet to show any signs of life. Mat wanted to giggle, but something about Professor McGonagall’s expression told him it wouldn’t be a good idea.

“As for the four of you,” McGonagall went on, “I hope you do not imagine that you’re going to get off without consequences. You were incredibly lucky that you weren’t hurt badly tonight. I can only imagine what possessed you all to run off on your own and I do not care. You will all report to the Heads of your houses for detention the first thing in the morning. Is that clear?”

All four nodded, muttering a subdued “Yes, ma’am.”

“Now off with you.”

 

* * *

 

After the Christmas holidays (and the detentions all four of them were stuck with for the first week of school) life returned back to the ordinary; Professor Mathwin kept muttering about taverns, Professor McGonagall assigned more homework than ever, Professor Taim hated everything and everybody except the Slytherins and the Headmaster made cryptic statements at the dinner table. Mat and Perrin didn’t precisely become friends with Rand and Egwene, but there were only so many things four eleven-year-olds could experience together without forming some kind of a bond, and defeating a Trolloc (and suffering the ensuing detention) together seemed to cross the line. They were okay for Gryffindors, Mat supposed.

As for his project to join the Hufflepuff house for real… Losing the letter had discouraged him enough that he didn’t feel like trying again just yet. Maybe by the summer holidays the whole Trolloc incident would have been sufficiently forgotten about and, along with it, his involvement in anything remotely resembling Gryffindorish escapades.

 

One Wednesday afternoon in February, Mat let Perrin drag himself to the library for their weekly study session. Mat would have rather made paper planes out of the parchment, but he kept scribbling notes anyway as Perrin pointed out the most important bits in the chapter they’d been given as homework. They were about halfway through the chapter when furious whispering from the other side of the row of bookshelves caught their attention.

Perrin sighed and closed his book. “I swear to Merlin, if they’re trying to set off stink bombs again…”

Mat got up too, glad for the interruption if slightly disturbed by the apparent heroic tendencies his friend was exhibiting. (Well, maybe that was a slight exaggeration, but there was a fine line between preventing stink bomb strikes in the library and… say, fighting Trollocs in the bathrooms.) They rounded the bookshelf — and found Rand and Egwene.

The two Gryffindors instantly fell silent and looked vaguely embarrassed for a moment, before Rand adopted an obviously fake innocent look and Egwene scowled as if Mat and Perrin had been very rude to interrupt them.

“No stink bombs,” Perrin said.

“Stink bombs?!” Egwene exclaimed, all righteous indignation, while Rand shook his head enthusiastically.

“Any Trollocs about to jump at us?” Mat asked, only mostly joking.

Egwene sniffed indignantly, and it was Rand’s turn to answer, “None that I’m aware of.”

Mat and Perrin looked at each other. “So…” Perrin began, and Mat continued, “What were you arguing about?”

The Gryffindors in turn shared a meaningful look, and then Egwene nodded. “We believe somebody let the Trolloc in on purpose.”

“We think it was Taim,” Rand added.

Mat stared. “But why?”

“We’re not sure about that—” Egwene began, but Rand cut her off.

“He hates me,” he muttered darkly. “You’d know if you were in the classes you’re supposed to be in,” he added. “He’s been trying to make me fail Potions all year and I wouldn’t put it past him to try to get me expelled.”

“We don’t know it’s _him_ ,” Egwene hissed, elbowing Rand in the ribs. “Just because you don’t like him doesn’t mean he’s a… a _Darkfriend_ or something. But somebody definitely did.”

“But why would _anyone_ let a Trolloc in the castle?” Perrin, ever the voice of reason, asked again. “You got to admit,” he said, looking at Rand, “it’s a bit far-fetched to expect that you’d go get into trouble just because there’s a Trolloc in the castle.”

Rand had the grace to look vaguely embarrassed.

“You explain to me how a Trolloc gets into Hogwarts by accident, then,” Egwene said and crossed her arms with an impatient huff.

Perrin obviously had no answer to that, and neither had Mat. “I still think this is crazy,” Mat muttered. Nobody deigned to grace that with a response.

“And, uh, we were just discussing what to do about it,” Rand continued, answering the original question.

“Do about it,” Mat repeated blankly. “What do you mean, do about it? What do you imagine you can do about it?”

“We can keep an eye on anything suspicious that goes on in the castle,” Egwene replied as though spying on professors was the most natural thing in the world. “Rand got something for Christmas that will help us with that…”

Somehow her ‘us’ seemed to have expanded to include Mat and Perrin, too. Mat opened his mouth to declare that he for one was going to have absolutely nothing to do with this. (Not a bloody hero, not a _bloody_ Gryffindor!) He looked at Perrin for support…

“Let us know if there’s anything we can do to help,” Perrin said.

Mat wanted to cry.

 

* * *

 

The invisibility cloak was the coolest thing he’d ever seen. Getting to use it and ghost unseen (uncaught, without risk of detention unless he made too much noise or literally ran into somebody) through Hogwarts in the late hours of the night was very nearly worth getting dragged into this whole hero business.

He was huddled under the cloak with Rand; they’d agreed to use the cloak in pairs, Mat with Rand and Perrin with Egwene. The arrangement suited Mat fine. He wouldn’t have admitted it out loud but he was perhaps a tiny bit intimidated by Egwene. The girl was a force of nature, like thunder, and Mat had always preferred to be indoors when it was thundering outside. Perrin and Rand both seemed to get along with her just fine, though. Sometimes Mat thought Perrin was almost as Gryffindor as Rand and Egwene.

This was the third week they were wandering the hallways at night (not every night because they did need to sleep and Professor McGonagall had been getting suspicious of the same handful of people always falling asleep in class) and they’d yet to find anything remotely suspicious going on. Once Mat was sure he’d seen the Headmaster sleepwalking (unless he was wandering around in a nightgown and with his eyes closed while awake for some reason that Mat couldn’t fathom), but he’d vanished around a corner before Rand had turned to look, and then the other boy hadn’t believed Mat. Of anything really suspicious, like Professor Taim, there had been no sign.

Mat was just about to suggest they head back to the dorms, when Rand nudged him. He nearly lost his balance and suppressed an indignant yelp. “What are you—?”

“Look, there!” Rand whispered, nodding towards a staircase a bit further along the hallway. A tall, dark figure in flowing black robes was hurrying silently up the stairs. “Do you know where those stairs lead?” Rand asked quietly.

Mat shook his head; they’d strayed into a part of the castle where students didn’t usually go. “There’s one very obvious way to find out, though,” he said, all aversion to adventure suddenly forgotten. Which was good because Rand was already moving, and Mat had to keep up or be left without the protection of the invisibility cloak.

They headed up the stairs, careful to make as little noise as possible, but they never caught sight of Professor Taim again. The stairs turned narrower and Mat was beginning to fear they’d find themselves in the attic or in a tower. Not that he’d mind checking out a tower, but if Professor Taim was there… maybe not. But instead of any of the former, they just found a door. The stairs ended there. The door didn’t look like it had been opened since around Merlin’s time.

The two boys stared at the door for a while.

“So…” Mat began.

“If that door’s closed…” Rand continued.

“…Where’d Taim disappear?”

Rand shrugged. “I guess that’s it for tonight—” He cut off abruptly as the door… shimmered. With a startled hiss, he grabbed Mat by the arm and drew him away from the door. The boys tried to blend into the stone wall (a feat made considerably easier by the invisibility cloak), holding their breath, as they watched the door open and the professor come out and breeze right past them and down the stairs. They stayed still, barely breathing, for a long while after Taim had vanished from sight.

“Well, we found him alright,” Mat muttered eventually.

“Yeah.” Rand detached himself from the wall and let go of Mat’s arm. “I suggest we go back and tell Perrin and Egwene about this. Maybe they’ll have some good ideas because I sure don’t.”

Mat didn’t disagree.

 

* * *

 

In retrospect, Mat should have expected Egwene’s solution. He should have also expected that neither Rand nor Perrin would see anything wrong with it, like the very real possibility of getting caught. At the very least, they’d spend the next five years doing detention! But he had come too far to back away now; Hufflepuffs didn’t let friends sneak into suspicious towers alone. Preferably not at all, but if stopping them was not an option, this was surely the next best thing to do. He just wished it didn’t feel so much like… well, hero stuff.

Moving silently was more difficult with four eleven-year-olds huddled under one cloak than with just two, and slower besides, but with enough patience they could manage it with minimal amount of stepping on each other’s toes. After a couple of wrong turns they found the staircase, with the door at the end of it.

“Does anyone even know how to open that thing?” Mat asked.

Egwene reached for the handle, muttering a spell (it sounded like _aloe vera_ but Mat suspected that wasn’t quite right).

The handle turned.

The door opened, silently and effortlessly for such a massive, old-looking door. Mat grimaced. Of course it was great to have someone as competent as Egwene along if they were going to do something as stupid as this, but she didn’t have to look so smug about it.

“So… do we just go in now or what?” Mat asked.

“That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?” Rand replied, but he made no move to enter the room. Perrin merely peered into the darkness with a suspicious frown.

Egwene sniffed impatiently and, stepping out from under the invisibility cloak, strode through the door.

The boys hurried to follow.

Whatever they had expected, what they found was certainly something… else. First of all it was completely impossible for the room to even exist; it was much larger than the tower could possibly contain, calling it a ‘room’ was like calling Hogwarts a ‘house’. In the center of it, there was a pool, shaped like a perfect circle and filled with something that looked like water but Mat was willing to bet his pocket money that it was anything but.

Egwene’s gasp suddenly broke the eerie silence. “I’ve _read_ about this!” she exclaimed. “But how is it here in Hogwarts? None of the books place it anywhere in England. But it can’t be anything else!”

Mat looked at Rand and Perrin, who both shrugged. “What exactly is it?” he asked when neither of the others seemed about to speak up.

Egwene turned to look at him as though he’d asked how many days there were in a week. “It’s the Eye of the World, you muppet,” she replied. “It’s said to grant unimaginable power to the one who can control it, but only the Chosen One will be able to. If Professor Taim has been coming here, it’s reasonable enough to assume that he’s after the power but can’t access it—”

“Maybe he can’t,” an unfamiliar, dry voice said, “but there’s someone in this room who can.”

Mat turned and saw two robed figures in the doorway; one looked ancient, with barely a wisp of hair on his head, skin yellowish and wrinkled, and the other was wearing a mask and gloves to cover himself — if it even was a man — entirely. Both of them were focused on Rand.

Rand looked like he was beginning to regret ever coming here. He backed away slowly, trying to place himself between Egwene and the two men, but Egwene was having none of it. She raised her wand—

The masked stranger made a casual gesture and the wand flew across the room, hitting the far wall with a muted clank. And then a lot of things happened in very little time.

Professor Taim strode in, wand in hand, eyes promising murder. The ancient man lunged at Rand. Perrin threw himself between the two, managing to trip the robed man and both fell to the floor. Egwene grabbed Rand’s wand and shouted something incoherent, and a bright blue fire shot towards the masked stranger, only to vanish into nothing within half a feet of its target. Mat scrambled for a remotely useful spell, in the end managing to set Professor Taim’s robes on fire, causing him to have to waste time on putting out the fire. The masked stranger’s mask seemed to smile…

And suddenly bright light filled the room. Mat had to shield his eyes, that’s how bright it was, and when he could see again, he saw Rand standing at the edge of the Eye and the not-water in the pool, shimmering, flowed into him until he shone like a star. Of course the (bloody) Chosen One would be a (bloody) Gryffindor. That was basically in the job description.

The ancient man lost whatever composure he’d had left and started limping towards the Eye, screaming profanities, Perrin still hanging on to his left leg and slowing him down considerably. The masked one made a sound that might have been laughter, throwing fire around indiscriminately, not caring whether it hit the children or his companion or Professor Taim, who seemed to be trying to hit either Rand or the ancient man with a spell while dodging the fire. And still Rand just stood there, soaking in the shining not-water like a (bloody) human sponge.

The ancient man finally managed to shake Perrin off and ran the remaining distance to the Eye with surprising alacrity. “We’ll see who is the better now, Dragonspawn!” he shouted and, laughing wildly, threw himself into the Eye.

Mat wasn’t sure what he’d expected to happen, but a huge man made of plants appearing in the middle of the room was not it. Egwene used the moment’s added confusion to disarm Professor Taim, knocking him  out in the process. The masked stranger howled with rage, lunging at the Eye—

The plant man caught him. Flowers sprouted through his robe and the howl of rage turned into a scream of pain and then died, and then the whole robed figure disintegrated into a cloud of butterflies, which spread out into the room before vanishing as well. Mat had barely time to think about what a bizarre way that was to die, before Rand drew his attention again. He was no longer soaking in the power from the Eye — was it empty? — but now there were lightning coming out of his hands, and Perrin was dangerously close… Mat looked at Egwene, who nodded, and together they dashed to Perrin, dodging lightning. Screaming “Not a bloody Gryffindor!” he grasped Perrin by the leg and together he and Egwene began dragging the bigger boy towards the door.

And everything exploded in light.

 

* * *

 

When he woke up in the hospital wing, his first words were “Not a… Gryffindor…”

That received a mildly disapproving frown from Madam Pomfrey’s assistant, but Madam Pomfrey herself just replied “Whatever you say, dear,” and shoved a glass of some sour liquid in his hands and told him to drink up. It took some time before anyone deigned to tell him the outcome of the battle at the Eye. Rand, Perrin and Egwene were all alive, as was Professor Taim. The two strangers were something Egwene called ‘Forsaken’ and they had both died, the masked one being hugged to death and turned into butterflies by the plant man (” _Green_ Man,” Egwene corrected indignantly; apparently he had been the guardian of the Eye and the Forsaken touching the Eye had summoned him) and the other struck by Rand’s lightning.

To be honest, Mat didn’t much care beyond the fact that all of his friends had made it out alive and he stopped listening as Egwene went on and on about the Forsaken and Dragons and prophecies. He had other things on his mind. Namely, what he was going to say to the Headmaster when he got the chance.

As soon as Madam Pomfrey cleared him to leave the infirmary he marched to the Headmaster’s office. The Headmaster didn’t look surprised in the least to see him.

“I am glad to see you well, Matrim,” he said.

“Thank you, sir.” Mat shuffled his feet nervously, unsure how to proceed now that he was here. His resolve, however, didn’t crumble, and eventually he just blurted out the whole story. “See, there’s something I’ve been wanting to talk about. I think the Sorting Hat made a mistake. I’m a Hufflepuff. I’m not a b— a Gryffindor. I _know_ it, sir. I’ve been doing my best to be a good Hufflepuff all year. I wrote a formal letter of petition once, but then there was a Trolloc and I lost it. The letter, not the Trolloc. And I probably should have written a new one but then I thought if I don’t come and see you now, I’m not sure I’ll have the chance before next autumn, with exams coming up and all…” He trailed off awkwardly. The words weren’t coming out sounding as intelligent and well-thought as he might have hoped, but it was going to have to do.

“And you want to be officially transferred to Hufflepuff,” the Headmaster said at length.

“Yes,” Mat replied, putting all his determination and hopes into the word.

The gave him a stern look. “Professor Taim would advise against it. You four interfered with his duty as a watcher over the Eye. Who knows what could have happened. If more than two Forsaken had been out and about already…” He paused for long enough that Mat began to fear that was going to be the end of it. “Fortunately for you,” the headmaster went on finally, “he is not the one who makes the decision.”

Mat felt a hopeful smile spread across his face. “Do you mean..?”

The Headmaster nodded. “Professor Mathwin will have you enrolled in the Hufflepuff house officially as soon as you go see her.”

 

* * *

 

And so it happened that before he turned twelve, Mat Cauthon became the first student in the history of Hogwarts to change houses.

(While he undoubtedly would have begged different, this did not in fact make him any less of a hero. In fact, he proceeded to act like one throughout his following years at school, saving his friends’ lives more times than anyone could count, all the while insisting that he was no bloody hero. The Hufflepuff house remains, to this day, exceedingly proud to have included him in their numbers.)

 


End file.
